


Feathered Sunrise

by ProwlingThunder



Series: The Everlasting List of Shenanigans [232]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: Clone Wars (2003) - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Absentee Jedi Master, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Big Brothers, Clone Troopers have Wings, Familial Soulmates, Gen, Little Sisters, Platonic Soulmates, Soulmate Adoptions, Wingfic, Wingverse, familial feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-20
Updated: 2020-08-20
Packaged: 2021-03-06 19:14:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 862
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26013961
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ProwlingThunder/pseuds/ProwlingThunder
Summary: This is something that is theirs, and no one else's.There's nothing on the holonet about such a thing. There's also no one they can ask.
Series: The Everlasting List of Shenanigans [232]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/97235
Comments: 2
Kudos: 26





	Feathered Sunrise

**Author's Note:**

  * For [gracethescribbler](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gracethescribbler/gifts), [eleutheria_has_won](https://archiveofourown.org/users/eleutheria_has_won/gifts).



> The 428th belongs to me and @gracethescribbler. Kestrel belongs to @grace and should not be used without their permission. Oriole and Detlef belong to me.

Every cadet starts with soft white baby-down on their wings, but by the time their training has completed, they've gone through a couple of molts and their adult colors have come. Every member of the 428th is a soft myriad of red, despite all the ways none of them think it should have happened. Rarely any batch comes out with such uniformity across their feathers. One of them sits down to calculate the odds under the guise of mock-combat numbers. It's. Not high.

They get dispatched from higher command and they all go together, and once free of walls on Kamino, they each carefully take turns spreading their wings to show one another:

A single white feather, painstakenly hidden from their teachers and the cloners both. This is something that is theirs, and no one else's.

There's nothing on the holonet about such a thing. There's also no one they can ask.

It's nearly two years after they first meet their spitfire little sister, all wrapped in Jedi robes, that she gets injured and ends up in Code's capable hands. He meets Kestrel in the command tent; Jedi Master Detlef, as is his usual, is _nowhere to be found._

Kestrel would be in the medical tent with her if he could. As a member of command, though, someone has to keep shit going, and Code had threatened everybody within the first week of deployment that if nobody wants to stay for an extended length of time in the tent, they'd better not show up unless they _needed_ medical attention. Code also doesn't usually leave the tent, unless there's actual combat, they're on a march or otherwise doing something that requires his presence. Kestrel's never seen him outside it when someone needed his attention, though.

That he's here is significant. Kestrel puts the reports down and turns his full attention to his brother, who looks stressed enough Kestrel feels like he's acquiring gray hairs in sympathy. "How are they?"

There are several brothers hanging out inside Code's space right now, each of them in various states, none of them anywhere near life-threatening. There are exactly zero vode worried about their welfare right now. Code knows exactly who everyone's actually worried about.

"I've put her on some painkillers to help her rest. That's not actually why I'm here."

They're fairly informal, the 428. At least when Detlef isn't around. "Go on."

For a moment, Code hesitates, and then he sighs heavily. "May be easier if you see it for yourself. Come on, I've got her in my bunk."

If she weren't the company's little sister, Kestrel might have worried about that. If he didn't know his brothers, he might have. But she is and he does, so he doesn't. But Oriole is the only girl in the company, and as a Jedi's cadet she should be given command quarters. Usually she sleeps in the middle of the barracks (sometimes when she wakes up Detlef has already left, which. The less Kestrel thinks on the matter the less likely he's to say something crossing into insubordination.) but that's no place for someone with her injuries. Code's quarters are least likely to get her jostled.

He puts his pad down and follows after. On the way, he updates him on the state of everyone else.

Oriole is comfortably tucked into Code's bunk, albeit with several more blankets, likely gifted from other members of the company. Kestrel should probably make everyone aware of how they _shouldn't_ misappropriate supplies, but for now, he'll let it pass. Even drugged into unconsciousness as she is, Oriole still looks like she's in pain. Code has her laying in such a way her injured side is in the air, exposed but more slathered in... something Kestrel isn't familiar with and hopes never to be acquainted to.

"Look," Code prompts. Kestrel has to take a moment to drag himself from the awful awareness that she got hurt in the first place to even see what Code is talking about.

"Is that... a tattoo?"

"There's no ink or dyes in her skin."

"Code.."

 _"Look,"_ Code insists, pulling him close. It stretches over and down her back, familiar and unfamiliar, shades of red in careful shapes.

Except one.

Kestrel feels his knees go weak. He's lucky that Code shoves a chair under him before they give out; it would be terribly undignified to hit the ground. This isn't much better.

"Kriffing hells."

There's a pattern on Oriole's back; two wings, arching from her shoulderblades and traveling down on either side of her spine. The creche master sketches it out for Soulmate records, but he gives her a copy as well. She keeps it with her and spends the lonely portions of her days aware that there's someone out there with a matching mark, someone who has wings of red and one pale feather.

She keeps the copy with her until she has to let it go, when Master Detlef comes for her. But she remembers, her Soulmate has her back. So she goes without complaint and she meets his soldiers.

The 428th is mantled with red feathers. Oriole stares at them all, mystified and delighted.


End file.
